On Consecrated Ground
by a.lakewood
Summary: My take on what may have happened after the Season Three finale: Sam's faced with burying his brother.


**Title**: On Consecrated Ground  
**Author:** alakewood  
**Warnings**: Spoilers for _No Rest for the Wicked_ and _Lazarus Rising._  
**Rating**: PG-13  
**Word** **Count**: 3300+  
**Summary**: My take on what may have happened after the Season Three finale.  
**Disclaimer**: As always, I own nothing.

**oxoxo**

He had failed.

Time had simply run out. He'd had one year to find a way to get Dean out of his deal and it was gone.

At first, the passage of time had seemed slow – as the summer days stretched on, the one-year expiration date on Dean's deal loomed in an almost unforeseeable distance. But after the months became weeks, the trickle of time ran a little more swiftly until the weeks became days with time passing like a torrent. Then that final night, the seconds ticked by faster than a heartbeat until-

Until Dean died. And time suddenly stood still.

In those poignant, horrifying moments after, cradling his brother's body, he'd been unable to believe – unable to _accept_ - the truth of what had happened, no matter what his eye saw. Not until Bobby entered the Fremont's house and stalled in the kitchen doorway at the sight of Dean's torn and bloody body gently clutched in Sam's arms.

The strong, steady beat of his heart in his chest was a painful reminder of the life his brother had sacrificed to save him. It seemed to mock his failure.

"Sam," Bobby said softly, squinting as much against the scene before him as from the sunlight streaming through the open blinds. "We should...We-we need to- You know what we need to do." He somehow couldn't find the words to tell Sam that they needed salt and burn his brother's body.

Sam shook his head violently, choking on a sob and wiping at his tear-stained face with the back of his coat sleeve, unable to juxtapose the image of his father's smoldering funeral pyre with the image of Dean lying before him. "No. Just...no."

"We have to."

"No."

"_Sam._"

"_No!_ I'll- I'll find a way. He's gonna need...He's gonna need a body when- when I get him back."

"Sam." There was a warning in Bobby's voice.

Their argument was interrupted by a quiet female voice calling in the hall. "Hello?"

Bobby turned. "Ma'am?" He glanced at Sam quickly then corralled the woman away from the kitchen.

Sam knew he didn't have much time to get Dean cleaned up and into the Impala which was parked a couple of blocks away from the cul-de-sac. So he improvised, wrapping the table runner around Dean's shredded chest and stomach, using his and Ruby's belts to tightly secure the fabric. The wounds on his shoulder and thigh were minor compared to the damage done to his chest. After fishing the car keys out of Dean's pocket, Sam slowly stood and went to the doorway, stepping far enough into the hallway that he could see Bobby without losing sight of his brother. "Bobby?"

Bobby turned his attention away from the woman and her husband, the man tightly clutching the little girl Lilith had possessed, and started towards Sam. "Are you ready to move him?"

Sam nodded. "Can-can you stay with him while I go get the car?"

"Of course."

Sam looked back at Dean's body for a long moment, his breath catching in his chest as he turned away and stalked past the Fremonts without a word. Reaching the lawn, he broke into a jog, the jog becoming a run as he passed groups of neighbors assembled in the street trying to figure out what had happened to them all the previous night. A few stared after him, but most ignored him. He returned with the Impala a couple of minutes later, coasting into the Fremont's driveway and leaving the engine running.

The brightness of the morning contradicted everything he was feeling inside. He was aware of the heat of the sun, but it couldn't warm him; he couldn't rid himself of the chill, of the numbness. Again, he ignored the Fremonts as he passed them, focused solely on getting Dean out of that house and as far away from Harmony, Indiana, as possible.

Bobby was sitting in one of the chairs, eyes focused on his hands clasped in front of him on the table. He looked up when he heard Sam come in. "Do- do you need help?"

Sam shook his head as he knelt down beside Dean. "No. I've got him." He carefully slid his arms under Dean's neck and knees, gently lifting his brother's limp body and holding him close as he maneuvered out of the kitchen, down the hall, past the Fremonts again, the Missus covering her mouth with a delicate hand and averting her eyes as Sam passed.

He left without even saying goodbye to Bobby. Just laid Dean across the backseat almost reverently before climbing in himself, and driving away. He drove until the Impala was nearly out of gas. With the needle just above the E, Sam passed through Pontiac, Illinois. A mile outside of the town, he came across a gravel drive overgrown with weeds and tall grass. The lane led to an old, neglected farmhouse in serious disrepair, the barn to the left rear of it half-collapsed on itself. Most of the windows had been busted out and the front door was ajar. It would have to do.

Sam went in first, just to make sure that the house really was empty and to see what kind of condition the interior was in. Everything was covered with a layer of dust, the paint was peeling, the wallpaper was separating from the walls, and leaves littered the floor. Much of the furniture was gone; the living room and bedroom on the first floor stood empty, but a long, heavy wooden table remained in the dining room. That would be enough.

He wandered out the back kitchen door and was greeted with the sight of a rusted water pump a yard ahead of him. With any luck – and the universe definitely owed him a break after the ordeal he'd been through: his brother had _died_ on his _birthday_ for Christ's sake – the well hadn't dried up and the pump wasn't corroded beyond use. With a great deal of effort, he wrenched the handle up, slammed it down, brought it up, then back down again. It moved much more easily the fourth and fifth time he pumped it, and water spewed from the mouth of the faucet. He let it run clean before he lowered the handle and stopped the water flow.

Not wanting to leave Dean lying in the backseat of the Impala for too long, Sam quickly went about cleaning up the table. In a closet in the upstairs hallway, he found abandoned blankets folded neatly on a shelf. He selected a soft, off-white cotton blanket and carried it back downstairs where he shook it out and spread it across the table's surface. With that done, he returned to the car and extracted Dean from it just as gently as he'd put him in. The table creaked slightly as Dean's weight settled onto it, but the thick, sturdy legs held, making no other sounds. Sam returned to the car to retrieve the first aid kit from the trunk as well as Dean's duffel. He dropped the bag beside the door, away from the area he'd be working in, and set the first aid kit on the table between Dean's feet.

Staring at Dean's still form, he took stock of his situation. He needed to find a bucket or some kind of small basin for water, and rags. He went to the other end of the table and stood beside Dean's head, laying a trembling hand on the side of Dean's face. Exhaling a shaky breath, he stared down at his brother's wide-open eyes. He gently closed their lids and sighed. "I'm..._God_, Dean, I'm sorry." He scoffed. "But 'sorry' isn't gonna bring you back, is it? I'm gonna bring you back. Whatever it takes, I'll bring you back," he promised.

After another silent moment with his brother, Sam headed back into the kitchen to see if any dishes or towels had been left, but the cupboards were bare except for a few drawers filled with odds and ends, one of which containing a package of four tall candles and a box of wooden matches. Aside from the door that led to the backyard, there was one other door in the kitchen. It opened to the basement.

He went back to Dean's duffel and pulled a flashlight from a pocket on the end and returned to the basement doorway in the kitchen. Cautiously, he walked down the steps and made it to the bottom without incident. One wall was all shelves, all empty except for one filled with various lengths of lumber. The wall opposite that one was lined with tools, and the one right in front of him held a workbench. On top of the bench were a couple of unfinished projects and an ice cream bucket full of various nuts and bolts, nails and screws. Underneath the bench, however, there was an empty, green five-gallon bucket. He dumped the ice cream bucket out on the top of the bench and took both buckets back up to the kitchen, leaving them beside the door to the backyard. Then he went back upstairs, taking a sheet from the linen closet. He placed the sheet on top of the first aid kit and headed for the back door.

Outside, Sam rinsed out the buckets before filling them with water and returning to the dining room with them. The final step before he got to work was fetching the candles and matches from the drawer in the kitchen. For the moment, the dining room was plenty bright – the early May sunlight shone in through the west-facing bay window and illuminated the whole room – but he'd need them in a few hours when the sun set.

First, he removed Dean's boots, his socks, then his belt. Nothing else would be salvageable, so he took the scissors from the first aid kit and cut Dean's jeans and shirts from his body. His brother might have been dead, but he'd save him the indignity of lying naked on a table in an abandoned house in the middle of nowhere. Dean deserved better than that. Sam just worked around the garment, gently cleaning Dean's ripped and torn flesh.

He removed Dean's watch, bracelet and ring, and the necklace his brother had worn since Sam had given it to him so many Christmases ago. He cleaned each piece and left them on the windowsill to dry. From there he went about stitching each wound closed. It was tedious, painstaking work and the sun had set just before Sam finished the gashes on Dean's chest. He lit the candles and placed them on either side of Dean's stomach. The wounds on Dean's left thigh and shoulder used up the very last of the catgut in the kit. By the time he was finished, the off-white blanket beneath Dean was soaked with water and blood, both dripping from the corners of the blanket and down the legs of the table. Again, Sam made the climb upstairs to find another blanket to lay Dean's body on as it dried before Sam could dress him.

Removing the wet blanket and replacing it had been much more difficult than Sam had anticipated, but he'd managed. He gathered Dean's clothes and the blood-soaked blanket and tossed them in a pile out the back door into the yard. He would burn it all once he was done.

There was much to do before Sam could bury Dean. There was the matter of a casket, of protecting it and its contents from demons and whatever else might seek his brother's body out. Of finding consecrated ground on which to bury him. The casket would be the best place to start, lumber and tools already supplied for him in the basement as if he'd been destined to find this dilapidated farmhouse.

John's journal was in Dean's duffel, as it had been when not in use for the past three years. There was a page near the back with various sigils and symbols for protection from evil spirits. Sam took the journal and the candles down to the basement and went to work. He used a grease pencil to mark the wooden planks with the symbols once everything had been cut down to size. Sam finished the casket sometime in the middle of the night and carefully dragged it upstairs, leaving it in the middle of the kitchen.

By then, Dean's skin had dried and Sam went about redressing his brother's body. From Dean's duffel he selected a black t-shirt, Dean's favorite pair of jeans which were unwashed and wrinkled at the top of the bag, and a green button-down. The weight of Dean's body in his hands was familiar, and Sam tried not to dwell on reality of the situation. Tried his damnedest to pretend that his brother was simply unconscious. But he couldn't believe the lie. No matter how much he wanted to. He sat Dean's body up, pulling his arms through the sleeves of the black shirt and then pulling on the green overshirt. Holding Dean like that in an awkward almost-embrace, made the tears well in his eyes.

He clutched his brother to his chest and cried.

The night was impossibly long, but the sun did eventually rise into another cloudless sky. Once it was high enough above the horizon, Sam started out into the backyard towards the grove of pines across the grassy field. Fifty or so yards in, the trees abruptly stopped, surrounding a clearing some forty-feet across. This would be where he would bury Dean. But, if it was the last thing Sam did, he'd make sure it was Dean's final resting place.

There had been a book in the Impala's trunk of Latin rituals and rites – the Rituale Romanum being one of them. In the back was an order of service for consecrating burial ground. It was supposed to be performed by a bishop, but the Winchesters had a tendency to do things in their own way. At least when Sam said the words, he'd mean them. And that would have to mean something to the guy upstairs. He took a deep breath and started reciting.

His Latin to English translation wasn't perfect, but he understood most of what he read and the gist of it was:

**The Lord be with you, and with thy spirit. Let us pray. O Father of all, we pray to thee for those whom we love but see no longer. Grant them thy peace, let light perpetual shine upon them, and in thy loving wisdom and almighty power take them unto Thee, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.**

The text instructed Sam to mark each corner of the clearing with the sign of the cross. He returned to his starting point and concluded the service.

**By virtue of our authority in the Church of God we have now consecrated and set apart from all profane use this ground to be a resting place for the remains of those who have departed in the Lord: in the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.**

Hear the words of the Scripture: I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me: Write, from henceforth blessed are the dead who die in the Lord: Even so, saith the Spirit. For they rest from their labors.

Sam remained in the clearing for a few moments longer, then returned to the house for the casket and a shovel.

As Sam worked at digging Dean's grave, the sky overhead the small clearing filled with clouds. Halfway through the process, a sudden, heavy downpour began. The last three feet took forever to excavate, but Sam struggled his way through it and climbed out of the hole a couple hours after he'd started.

Back in the dining room, he removed his mud-covered jacket and went back to Dean's side. He took Dean's watch, and the bracelet and ring from the windowsill and replaced them on Dean's wrists and finger. Sam picked up the necklace, the amulet weighing the leather cord down with a nearly unnoticeable weight. He returned to Dean's side once again and lifted his brother's head. Looking at Dean's face, he slowly lowered Dean's head back down to the table. Slipping the cord around his neck, Sam let the amulet drop on to his chest. As if the pounding of his heart in his chest wasn't enough, the amulet and everything it stood for would serve as a constant reminder of what he'd lost and what he would tirelessly work to regain.

The rain eventually eased up to the point where Sam was comfortable with taking Dean back out to the Impala. As he was gathering Dean in his arms, Sam remembered the condition of the backseat. He ran back upstairs for a heavy blanket to lay down across the seat. Once that was taken care of, he carried Dean out to the car, and drove across the field, a single-car funeral procession. He parked just outside the grove of pines and went back to the clearing to lower the casket into the grave. With the rain now a slight drizzle, he lifted the lid off of the pine box and leaned it up against one of the dirt walls. He climbed back out to retrieve Dean's body. There was no easy way to get Dean's body into the casket, but Sam tried to do it as carefully as possible.

Sam knelt in the mud beside Dean's body in the casket. "You should've let me stay dead, Dean. Everyone would've been better off. _You_ would've been better off. Would still be alive." He shook his head. "This whole year...wasted. I should've tried harder, should've done more. If there's a way to bring you back, I'll find it. Doesn't matter what the price is, if it's my soul or something else, I'll find a way. I promise. You're all I've got left and I'm not giving up. Not even if I have to face Lilith myself. I'll find the bitch and hunt her down."

He remembered the words Dean had said to him shortly before the clock had struck midnight. _Remember what Dad taught you. And remember what_ I _taught you._ Sam had learned from the best. He would find Lilith, and she would pay.

"This isn't goodbye," he whispered as he replaced the lid on the casket and nailed it down, each strike of the hammer sounding much too loud, much too final. For the last time, Sam climbed back out of the hole and stared down at the pale wood covered with symbols. Even more final than the sound of the nails being pounded into the wood was the sound of the dirt being dropped onto the casket. "This isn't goodbye," he repeated.

The final piece was a haphazardly constructed cross for the marker of Dean's grave. Sam pounded it into the soft earth at the head of the plot.

He stood there for a moment longer, staring at the upturned earth beneath which his brother laid. Slowly, he returned to the Impala, Dean's voice in his head admonishing him for even _thinking_ about getting into the car as filthy as he was. He went back up the house for the last time and took the table apart, dragging the pieces outside. He stacked them around Dean's shredded clothes and the bloody blanket. He doused the pile with the last of the lighter fluid that had been in the trunk and lit it all on fire.

Grabbing Dean's duffel from the dining room, he left the house and returned to the Impala.

With one hand clutching the amulet that hung around his neck, he sped away from the house, away from Pontiac, Illinois. Lilith was out there somewhere. And he'd find her. Whatever it took. If it was the last thing he did.


End file.
